The First Expedition
by Cubby250
Summary: Cubby's first adventure with the rest of the Lost Boys during his second week as a Lost Boy


"I think we should go explore something," Red opinioned over a delightfully delicious breakfast of stew. This was only my second week on the island, but it seemed like a lot of meals consisted of beef stew. At least it looked like beef, it normally had a very interesting combination of tastes and textures.. It was the potatoes I was a little concerned about. Those and the interesting green vegetable that didn't look at all familiar.

"And where do you think we should explore?" Tig asked through a mouthful of stew. "About the only place we haven't thoroughly explored is the North Wood, and ya know not even I'm going to go through the North Wood without a really good reason."

"What's so bad about the North Wood?" I asked. I didn't think that any place with trees could be too horribly bad. Of course there wasn't a whole lot I knew about the island yet.

"The North Wood is a weird place," Leo said. "Strange stuff happens there a lot. The only time any of us'll go in there is if we're all together. And even then, only if we have to."

"Hey, I know," Stumble spoke up. "How 'bout that place near the edge of the cliffs. We ain't ever been in that area before."

"You mean that place where the path is crumbling?" Tig asked. Stumble nodded. "Where you have to use those vines that look like they're about to break or come out of the rocks?" Another nod. "Where that avalanche happened and where Peter said the pirates had been known to hang out because they could get there by boat and no one could supposedly get there from above?" Once more Stumble nodded. "Cool! That sounds like the place we ought to go explore."

I had listened to the growing list of reasons why this would probably not be a great place to explore and couldn't believe it when Tigger so matter-of-factly agreed this would be a great place to go. It made me wonder how horrible the North Wood had to be if this cliff area wasn't has dangerous. What if I fell? What if I got stuck? What if I tumbled over the edge and Something Bad happened? Dozens of disasters flashed through my mind in an instant, all of them starring myself. Even if nothing like that happened, what if pirates attacked?

Red must have been thinking along my wavelength because he asked, "What if pirates attack?" I breathed a sigh of relief figuring if Red was concerned about this, then the others would probably listen to him. The next second I found out that we weren't on the same wavelength. "The new kid's going to need a weapon of some sort."

Leo shrugged. "That's no big deal. Hang on a sec." He went over to a large chest that stood in the corner of the common room and lifted the lid with a great deal of squealing and creaking. There was the sound of metal crashing together, the sound of glass breaking, and the unmistakable sound of a cuckoo clock chiming tree o'clock. He came back to the table, staggering under a load of equipment and dropped it with a clang of noise. "One of these should work." He picked up a cutlass and handed it to me. "Here, try this."

I gingerly took the blade and was surprised at how much it weighed. I gave it a practice wave causing all the boys at the table to duck and Surefoot to yell, "Hit the deck." It was hard to stop and by the time I had the end of it pointing to the floor, I'd managed to put a neat slit in the leg of my bear pelt which was rapidly becoming red with blood.

"Maybe something smaller would work for him," Roo said as he bandaged the gash on my leg. "Peter'd probably say something if one of our own men took more of us out than the pirates did."

"How about a dagger?" Leo asked. "This is one of Peter's old ones. He gets them from the elves when he saves them from doom. At least that's what he says." Leo handed me a dagger that was as surprisingly light as the sword had been heavy. It shone brightly even in the dim light of the common room. There was something that seemed to hum in my head when I took it and I suddenly felt as though I could do anything with it. I took aim and quickly flung it towards the back wall.

"I don't think we want to try a bow and arrow either," Leo said as he watched Roo neatly reattach the end of Tigger's tail back to his tiger pelt where it had been neatly severed by the dagger I'd thrown.

"It wasn't my fault, honest. I just felt like I had to throw it and you saw me aim at the wall. I don't know how that happened. It was like magic or something."

Tigger looked at Red with a grin on his face as Roo finished up. "Bet I know how it happened." Red's response was simply a smirk at the tiger pelted Lost Boy. "That's okay," Tig continued. "You might want to be careful where you rest your head this afternoon."

"Hey, how about a slingshot? Anyone can use one of those," Stumble said. I was quickly given a slingshot and told to try it out. I found a marble from the table, took aim at my pallet and let loose. I watched as a bunch of Lost Boys dived for the floor once again as the marble went slightly astray and somehow ended up buried in the dirt ceiling.

"Careful," Tigger said, "you could put an eye out with that." On hearing those words the rest of the boys fell immediately silent and looked at Tig. "What? I didn't mean it. It's just that, you know."

"That sounded awfully grown up."

"It was an accident," Tig explained sheepishly. "I guess I was just surprised or something." There was a little bit of talk about growing up, but the topic of talk quickly came back to my clumsiness with weapons.

"So what'll we do now? He can't go without a weapon. It's just un-Lost Boy like."

"I dunno, Surefoot. Maybe he can just tackle 'em or something. He looks like he could take down a couple of pirates without even trying just by falling on them."

"Yeah, right. Peter really would have a fit if he found out about that. It's not like we're playing _King of the Hill_ or something like that." Tigger paused considering me. "But next time we do play that, I get dibs on you. Hey, maybe we should invite the elves to play next time."

"I got it," Leo suddenly crowed causing Tig, Surefoot and Stumble to jump back from him, while Surefoot muttered under his breath that Leo should probably keep it instead of spreading it around. "Not that," Leo said as he helped Stumble off the floor where he's stumbled to as he jumped back. "Look, who's Cubby remind you of? Who else had a reputation for being as clumsy as he is but strong as a moose too. No, not Stumble, I said strong as a moose," he said as someone started to answer.

It appeared there was a lot of heavy duty thinking going on for a moment and then Roo hesitantly spoke up, "You mean the first Cubby?" Leo nodded.

"I thought you said strong as a moose, not big as one," Tigger said.

"Ha, ha, very funny. You want to play _King of the Hill_ now and see how well you do?" I asked.

"Guys, relax. We can give him the old Cubby's club."

"Yeah," Surefoot said slowly, considering it. "That'd probably work. You could probably knock a pirate across the island with a swing of that."

"But it's haunted," Tigger said. "Remember? It's..."

"It is not haunted. You just had a weird dream. That's all, little bro."

I was beginning to think that slicing myself up with a cutlass was sounding better than a haunted club. How'd a club become haunted, anyway? Before I could offer to stay behind and 'guard' Hangman's Tree while the rest of the boys went on their adventure, Leo had gone back to the chest and was rummaging through it. A moment later he handed me what seemed to be a plain wooden club. It had a couple of notches on it and what looked like dried blood on the end and the handle. "What is this? Blood?"

Leo looked uncharacteristically unsure of himself. "It's, uh, it's probably chocolate pudding. Cubby loved chocolate pudding and he was sort of messy sometimes. So, yeah, that's probably what it is."

I didn't believe a word of it. It was obvious that the stuff on the club wasn't chocolate pudding. I could tell easily. I'd already scoured a lot of the island looking for chocolate, pudding or otherwise, and knew there was none to be found anywhere. Chocolate seemed like something one should be able to wish for, though, so I wasn't too concerned about it... yet.

Having gotten the weapon issue straightened out, we took off for this place that was by the edge of the cliffs. The journey was a typical one for the island. At some point most of us got covered by mud when we were led down the wrong path by Red. I got jabbed by a unicorn horn, there was a brief but very intense lemon storm (where lemons the size of walnuts rained from the sky), and a small bear cub decided to adopt me as its mother until its real mother came along and chased me up a tree. Tig thought that was really funny until I lost my grip and fell down on top of him.

We finally got to the area by the cliffs overlooking the sea. At the bottom of the cliffs was a beautiful sand covered beach that just begged to have toes dug into it and castles made out of it. There were no pirates present.

Leo looked down at the path to the beach below and rubbed his hands together. "Now the fun part begins," he said. "Cubby, why don't you lead?"

"Whatcha mean I'm going first?" I asked Leo in a small voice after he made his pronouncement.

"Oh yeah, it's great. Every one of us'd consider it an honor to get to lead. A new Lost Boy hardly ever gets to do that."

I wondered exactly what I had done to merit such an honor and if it was too late to undo whatever it was I'd done to deserve it. "Can't I give the honor to someone else?"

Leo looked puzzled. "Why'd you want to do that?"

"Oh, you know. I mean all of you guys have a lot more experience than I do. It'd probably be better for one of you to lead just in case."

"Just in case what?" Tigger demanded as he bounded to the edge of the drop and skidded to a stop causing a bunch of pebbles and rocks to go tumbling over the cliff. He took a peek down below and shrugged. "Ain't no pirates or octopuses down there, just sand and water."

"Shouldn't that be octopi?" Surefoot asked.

"Pie? Who has pie? I want some," Stumble said as he joined us.

"Don't tell me the biggest Lost Boy is also the most cowardly Lost Boy," Tig said giving me a sideways glance. "You aren't chicken are you?"

Before I could say anything Red spoke up. "Does that mean you're giving up the title, Tig?"

"What? I'm no chicken. Not now anyway. That was different. It was, you know." The sly grin Tig had been showing slowly changed to a sheepish one. "Yeah, you're right."

"We'll all be there to watch your back if you want to lead, and if not, no big deal." He glanced at his twin. "Tig didn't lead for almost four cycles and you can see how he turned out."

"It's not my fault. You wouldn't let me do it."

"Anyway you want to?"

I thought about it and looked back at the group of Lost Boys who were laughing and joking around. It suddenly dawned on me that I was a part of this group now. Something that had almost never happened before. I gave a tentative smile as I thought about it, then was surprised by listening to myself say, "Yeah I guess I'll give it a try."

"Cool," Leo allowed. "We'll be right behind you and I've got a thing of pixie dust, just in case. Ready to roll?"

I thought roll was a pretty bad choice of words and wondered why Leo was allowed to use 'just in case' but I didn't seem to be able to. I was going to ask what the pixie dust was going to be used for, but decided at the last minute I probably didn't want to know. I hefted the club over my shoulder and gently put a foot on the path that led down and as slowly as possible rested my weight on it. Nothing happened. I took another step and another with the same result of nothingness. It was incredible.

"Hey, there are only like so many hours in a day? You going to pick up the pace or what?" someone from behind me called. I thought it might have been Surefoot's voice and I was pretty sure everyone else snickered over it. I picked up the pace and bit and was beginning to think things weren't so bad when my right foot hit on dirt and then nothing.

Sometimes I can't believe how quick Leo's reflexes are. I don't think I had fallen an inch before he flung the contents of the bag of pixie dust at me with the shouted command to think happy thoughts. Huh," was my intelligent thought for the moment as my tumble increased. I suddenly realized what he meant and started thinking about giant blueberries (don't ask). I had closed my eyes and was suddenly listening to a ton of laughter. Wondering if they'd actually laugh if I was falling down a cliff, I slowly opened my eyes to discover I really was flying again. Well, part of me was. I guess the pixie dust Leo had thrown hadn't had a chance to disperse very widely and had landed in one distinct location. I was currently floating upside down, with my nose about six inches above what was left of the trail. I was floating rump up as all the blood rushed to my head. "What's going on?" I asked.

"No worries," Leo replied. You just tried to take a header off the path, but it's cool now. Just keep thinking happy thoughts. Oh and see that branch by your left hand? Can you sort of grab it?" I wasn't sure why that was necessary, but figuring it might be all that would keep me plummeting to the ground at any second, I put a death grip on it while I continued to hold the club with my other. "Hold on tight and don't let go." I'm not sure what the next level beyond a death grip is, but that's what I did. Behind me, someone was messing with my legs and it felt like there was suddenly gravel in front of them rather than under them."

"Me first, me first," I heard someone call out.

"Guys? What's happening?" I needn't have asked the question because a moment later I felt someone jump on my back and walk across followed by everyone else, each boy politely thanking me for serving as their replacement for the damaged path. Leo was the last one across and grabbed me by the ankles and pulled me across. I wasn't sure that I really liked being used as a bridge, but at least I wasn't leading anymore.

"Okay guys, against the cliff so Cubby can take point, again." Cursing didn't seem like it'd be too inappropriate at that point, but I settled for simply grumbling about the whole thing as I slid down the path trying not to fall off, with Leo following behind me. I got to the front again with only Stumble complaining that I'd stomped on his foot. I figured after he'd walked on my back, we should be even, but apparently he didn't think about that. Once again I was leading the group down the path.

I suddenly thought of something as we were slowly making our way down. "Hey, Leo? Do you have anymore pixie dust?"

"Naw, but if you fall now you'll probably only break an arm or a leg or something. It probably wouldn't kill you or anything. Roo might be able to fix it or at least put you out of your misery. He's good at that" There was a snort from Roo.

"Oh." I decided not to think about that anymore and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other on solid, less shaky ground. It didn't seem like any time before I was standing on the sand of the beach watching the waves roll in. I was pretty proud that I'd managed to do that and turned around to say something to Leo. He was about ten feet off the ground with the rest of the boys, still on the path, looking at me. "What gives?" I demanded.

"We just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything weird going on before we followed you down all the way. You know, so we could rescue you if you needed it. Not that you would, you could probably take care of anything that'd come around here."

I had my doubts about that, but didn't say anything. I looked around and then slowly walked to the edge of the water. Almost instantly a wave crashed on shore and soaked the paw mocs. I grinned and wondered what the etiquette for swimming was. I had on small clothes or could probably swim in the bear pelt if that was the custom, although I wasn't sure how well I'd do when it was soaked.

By this time, the rest of the boys had put in an appearance on the beach and were beginning to wade in the water (I found out that pelts were worn when swimming), building sand castles and attempting to slip small crabs down each other's pelts. I walked back from the water's edge to the beginning of the path which was wreathed in shadow, and looked up at the cliff to stare at the route we had just taken down, which looked as though it was about a thousand miles high. It amazed me that I hadn't managed to tumble to the ground trying to come down what looked, from here, an impossibly narrow trail that seemed to be mostly falling off the side of the cliff.

My fascination with the cliff is what caused me to miss the fact that the rest of the boys had gone silent at some point. There was a rowboat way off to one side of the beach, almost beyond where the sand gave way to the rocks. The rest of the Lost Boys were in a group at the center of the beach, and it wasn't too hard to figure out that the three rough looking characters holding swords of some sort and surrounding the group must have snuck ashore from the rowboat at the end of the beach,. surprising everyone. There was a fourth man standing there who was holding a small flintlock pistol and had a small chest laying at his feet. The fourth man didn't look nearly as rough as the other three. The expression on his face looked more like care-worn concern about things in general than the expressions of malicious glee the others wore.

"Pirates," I thought to myself. "And pirate treasure," a part of me added noticing the chest." A quick look revealed none of the pirates had a hook on their hand. That was something of a relief. My next thought was that the most prudent thing to do would be to run as fast and as silently as I could in order to escape. Maybe I could bring back help or call '999' or see if any of Her Majesty's Royal Marines had happened to have landed in the past fifteen minutes. I'm more than ashamed to say that it was four or five steps I took in the direction of 'elsewhere' before I suddenly realized what I was doing. I couldn't run away. I was part of this group now. Just as they had watched my back coming down the trail, it was time for me to get their back in this current thing. Thinking that, I immediately felt sick and wanted to hurl.

I swallowed the feeling and tried to get my muddled mind to figure out what to do. None of the pirates were too close to my friends and two of the pirates were busy taunting them and thrusting swords towards them. The third was busy cutting up lengths of rope he'd gotten from somewhere and the one who looked like he belonged behind a counselor's desk was busy shaking his head sorrowfully. I suddenly remembered that a diversion was what was called for. Something that would give the boys a chance to escape. It worked in all the books I'd read.

After another couple of minutes, I finally realized I'd have to do something before they starting tying up the boys. Unable to come up with anything, I at least figured the diversion would do the most good if I did it when the tying up began. The one with the rope approached Leo first. At the pirate started to tie up Leo's hands, I emerged galloping from my hiding place with a blood curdling scream (at least that's what I thought it was. The rest of the boys agreed that it sounded more like the sound a bird might make if someone was pulling out its tailfeathers.) I aimed for the nearest pirate, started swinging my club with all my might, and closed my eyes as I approached. Everything went according to plan up to the point I closed my eyes. I stumbled over a seashell of some sort and opened my eyes to find myself tumbling over the sand, still managing somehow to be waving the club. It was a good thing I had tripped, because one of the pirates was swinging their cutlass in an arc where my neck would have ended up being. I ended up smashing the nearest pirate in the leg with the club, resulting in a snap that was clearly heard by everyone on the beach The pirate who was next to 'broken leg pirate' pulled out a dagger, gave me a particularly odious grin and prepared to hurl the dagger in my direction.

"Hold, Mr. Baines," the counselor looking pirate bellowed out loud enough to echo from the wall of the cliff.

"But Mr. Smee. He broke Gray Michael's leg, he did. You heard it yourself, you did. We just can't have these brats breakin' their betters' legs without some sort of reckoning, we can't."

Smee ignored Mr. Baines' whining and looked down at me, then prodded my side none too gently with his foot. "And ye'd be who?" he finally asked.

"Me be..., er I'm Cubby."

He ran his hand over the whiskers on his chin. "Ye be too solid to be a ghost, but sturdy as the other and more than a bit of his look d' ye have. Where be ye from?"

Before I could say anything, there was a commotion over by Leo and somehow the lion pelted boy had the pirate's dagger. Said pirate now being on the ground moaning very loudly and holding his stomach. Leo waved the dagger in the general direction of Smee. "Let 'em go, or he get's it," Leo said, nodding towards Smee. I couldn't believe that something like that could possibly work. I mean what were the chances that Leo'd be able to make a shot like that? Apparently they were pretty good because Smee shook his head slightly at the other pirates and they pulled back, grumbling. All except the one with the broken leg. He was shouting because one of the other pirates was pulling him along by his good leg.

Smee looked down at me and gave the barest of grins. "'twill be intresten playin' with ye, methinks, lad. Intresten indeed." He started to reach down to grab the chest, but I swung the club against it causing it to make a hollow noise. "That stays too."

"Oh d'ya think so, eh? Coul' be there be nought ye can do if I don' be thinkin' ye be correct in that."

"He can clean your clock, I bet," Tig spoke up. It sounded sarcastic to me, but then anyone making such a statement would probably sound sarcastic to me."

"Mayhap ye be right," Smee allowed with another one of those tiny grins. He sketched an exaggerated bow in my direction and then joined his men who were at the rowboat. "Okay, ye lubbers. 'twill be a lot o' explaining ye'll be doin' when we return. Best t' get your stories straight and pretty." Mr. Smee and 'broken leg' piled into the rowboat and the other two launched it before climbing in to join them. I saw Mr. Smee take a look back, before they rowed out of site.

"Whoa, Cubbs. Maybe there's something to you after all," Tigger said with a grin. "I wouldn't have thought ya had it in you. C'mon, let's see what we have to take back to Pan." The rest of the boys gathered around the chest. Leo indicated I could do the honors, and I took a couple of swings at the oversized lock fastening the chest. The second one caused the lock to spring apart and everyone held there breath as Leo slowly opened it.

There was a tremendous exhale of breath from everyone and a couple of "What the heck?" when the treasure was revealed to be what looked like a silver thimble and nothing else.

"Oh well," Roo finally said. "If nothing else, it's still something we've managed to borrow from Hook." He picked up the thimble and tossed it to Leo. "Be sure to tell him how valiantly we fought for this." Leo caught the thimble and put it in his pocket.

"Think we oughta get back to show Pan our prize?" Red asked, with a yawn. I was a little surprised by that, since it seemed we had just gotten here. The shadows in the cliff had increased though, as if a great amount of time had passed. One of the things I was discovering about this place was that time seemed really fluid.

"Sure, why not?"

"Why not? Why not?!" Surefoot erupted. "I'll tell you why not. The entire time we were on our way here all I could think about was the sand castle I was going to build. So now that we get here and finally get rid of those stupid pirates, we decide we have to go back to the Tree because of a stupid thimble? That's stupid." There wasn't any disagreement to that and in short order, we were all building sand castles as well as thick sand walls to defend them from the incoming tide. By the time we had each finished and connected them together, stars were beginning to appear overhead. I let loose with a huge yawn of my own as I wondered if the pain on the back of my neck meant I'd gotten too much sun. That pain was overshadowed by Tigger when he came up and yanked a few hairs out of my head.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"Luck of course. What else would it be for?"

"Whatcha mean luck?" I asked suspiciously. I didn't feel particularly lucky at the moment, although I did feel pretty satisfied. I had sort of started to believe that Tig never really said exactly what he meant, and although he wouldn't lie, he might not tell all the truth if he could get a practical joke out of it. So it surprised me when he sat down on the sand next to me with a serious expression on his face.

"You're like the first Cubby. Big, clumsy, cowardly and a few other things. Like lucky. I can tell you're going to have a ton of luck and I want to be sure I get a share of it."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah. It might not always be the best luck or even the right luck, but you've got a bunch of it." Above us a light flared and we both looked up in time to see a shooting star fly through the sky above us. "Make a wish," he said.

I thought about someone in the 'real' world and made the wish as the star faded over the horizon. Tig nodded wisely as if something had just been confirmed, although I had no idea what that possibly could have been. "Cool. Ready to head back?"

"Yeah, maybe." I was thinking about the trek back up the path and wondered if I'd have to go first or if I'd be the bridge again. The thought of returning in the dark on a crumbling path didn't thrill me for some reason. My back started to hurt almost immediately as if sensing the thought.

"Good," Tig said. "We can use the shortcut going up."

"What shortcut?"

"Oh you know, the stairs at the other end of the beach. There's this stone staircase that goes up to the top. It's pretty cool. Sometimes it sparkles in this really weird way when the moon hits it just right. Almost as though it was trying to light up the entire beach or something."

"And can you go down this staircase too?" I asked in disbelief.

"Sure. That's the way we normally go down, but it's no fun. I thought it was pretty cool that Leo decided to go down the other way this time." He grinned at me. "See, like I said. Luck."

I figured the part about it not always being the best luck or the right luck would probably be tested pretty constantly.


End file.
